THE LORD. So long as he lives upon the earth, so long be it not forbidden to thee. Man is liable to error, whilst his struggle lasts. MEPHISTOPHEles. I am much obliged to you for that; for I have never had any fancy for the dead. I like plump, fresh cheeks the best. I am not at home to a corpse. I am like the cat with the mouse. THE LORD. Enough, it is permitted thee. Divert this spirit from his original source, and bear him, if thou canst seize him, down on thy own path with thee. And stand abashed, when thou art compelled to own—a good man, in his dark strivings, may still be conscious of the right way. MEPHISTOPHEles. Well, well, only it will not last long. I am not at all in pain for my wager. Should I succeed, excuse my triumphing with my whole soul. Dust shall he eat, and with a relish, like my cousin, the renowned snake. THE LORD. There also you are free to act as you like. I have never hated the like of you. Of all the spirits that deny, the scoffer is the least offensive to me. Man's activity is all too prone to slumber: he soon gets fond of unconditional repose; I am therefore glad to give him a companion, who stirs and works, and must, as devil, be doing. But ye, the true children of heaven, rejoice in the living profusion of beauty. The creative essence, which works and lives through all time, embrace you within the happy bounds of love; and what hovers in changeful seeming, do ye fix firm with everlasting thoughts. (Heaven closes, the Archangels disperse.) MEPHISTOPHELES alone. I like to see the Ancient One occasionally, and take care not to break with him. It is really civil in so great a Lord, to speak so kindly with the Devil himself. FAUST. NIGHT. FAUST in a high-vaulted narrow Gothic chamber, seated restless at his desk. FAUST. Here -HAVE now, alas,by zealous exertion, thoroughly mastered philosophy, the jurist's craft, and medicine, and, to my sorrow, theology too. I stand, poor fool that I am, just as wise as before. I am called Master, aye, and Doctor, and have now for nearly ten years been leading my pupils about-up and down, crossways and crooked ways-by the nose; and see that we can know nothing! This it is that almost burns up the heart within me. True, I am cleverer than all the solemn triflers-doctors, masters, writers, and priests. No doubts nor scruples of any sort trouble me; I fear neither hell nor the devil.For this very reason is all joy torn from me. I no longer fancy I know anything worth knowing; I no longer fancy I could teach anything to better and convert mankind. Then I have neither land nor money, nor honour and rank in the world. No dog would like to live so any longer. I have therefore devoted myself to magicwhether, through the power and voice of the Spirit, many a mystery might not become known to me; that I may no longer, with bitter sweat, be obliged to speak of what I do not know; that I may learn what it is that holds the world together in its inmost core, see all the springs and seeds of production, and drive no longer a paltry traffic in words. Oh! would that thou, radiant moonlight, wert looking for the last time upon my misery; thou, for whom I have sat watching so many a midnight at this desk; then, over books and papers, melancholy friend, didst thou appear to me!Oh! that I might wander on the mountain-tops in thy loved light-hover with spirits round the mountain caves-flit over the fields in thy glimmer, and disencumbered from all the fumes of knowledge, bathe myself sound in thy dew! Woe is me! am I still penned up in this dungeon?-accursed, musty, walled hole!-where even the precious light of heaven breaks mournfully through painted panes, stinted by this heap of books, which worms eat-dust begrimeswhich, up to the very top of the vault, a smokesmeared paper encompasses; with glasses and boxes ranged round, with instruments piled up on all sides, ancestral lumber stuffed in with the rest? This is thy world, and a precious world it is! And dost thou still ask, why thy heart flutters so confinedly in thy bosom ?-Why a vague ach |